The Golden Thread
by Mlle Shiow Jen
Summary: 'Beware the Gods who would favor you.' Ariadne is warned and it is something she knows all to well when her sister consorts with Apollo and later when her father curries Poseidon's favor by summoning what will be eventually known as the bull of Crete. Her own fate seemingly bound to a beautiful and terrifying young god from Thrace.
1. Blinding Bull, Blinding God

One of Ariadne's first memories was of a man, or what she thought was a man in the halls of her Uncle's palace. His hair was so blinding and bright a gold, she thought he must be her grandfather Helios and called out to him. But the stranger just placed a finger to his lips as he stood in front of her older sister's doorway and whispered,"I am Apollo, little one. Not Helios." Then her sister's arms encircled him and pulled him into her chambers her door shutting firmly behind her.

Sometime later she saw her sister sneaking out of the palace with a baby. "This is our secret, little sister." Acacallis told her. "Promise not to tell."

And when she came back her sister's arms were empty. And Ariadne's stomach churned with questions, but she kept her promise. Only occasionally skirting around it with questions.

"Where do babies go, Mama, when they aren't wanted?"

"What happens when you don't keep a promise?"

"Uncle have you ever seen a god?" And her uncle Rhadamanthus frowned before finally whispering to her quietly (as if afraid something divine might hear). "Beware the gods, little Ariadne. The ones who might curse you, but especially those who would favor you."

This frightened her, because in his voice was the sound of experience. And though whispered, his words echo in her mind when her father calls on Poseidon's aid to summon a bull who's white hide was as blinding as the hair of a god, and it is her mother sneaking through the halls of her father's palace. But never so strongly as when she sees her sister's belly once again swell with child and her father banished her for her indiscretion. That golden haired god nowhere to be found.


	2. Mothers

His first memory was of the taste of honey, sticky and sweet but also slightly sour in its aftertaste. He remembered looking up at the young dark eyes of the child who had poured the honey in his infant mouth, eyes he would come to know belonged to his cousin, Macris. He remembered other eyes too: The dark almost black eyes of Melicertes, the cool gray of Actaeon, the dull light blue of Learchus and Epeiros and finally the brillant deep blue of Ino and Pentheus. He remembered liking that deep blue in Ino but not Pentheus. Pentheus who along with Melicertes seemed to regard him warily as if he was something alien and not to be trusted. Centuries later when the scribe for a rival faith wrote about the truth coming from the mouths of babes he would think back to those two cousins of his with varying degrees of regret.

But when he was a baby he only wondered at that distrust, crying when he was taken away by arms that belonged to Hermes, a brother. And this brother took him to a moutain hidden in clouds not far from Thrace. It is here he learned the word 'mother' and applied it liberally to nine sisters who called themselves the Hyades. They coddled him and called him 'Dionne' when they showed him off to their endless rotation of lovers but 'Little God' when it is just him and the nine of them. Each were as dark as the earth after a rain, their hair growing thickly from their heads like the wool of a ram. They told him stories about their father who must forever keep Ouranos from Gaia. About evil Hera who was the reason he must never tell anyone that they called him 'Little God' or that he had a tongue and not another pair of lips between his legs. And they told him about his father, Zeus, and how he loved a priestess named Semele who was his _real _mother but she had gone to the realm of Hades because of a foolish promise and of the brothers and sisters he had never met. Being a child he accepted these stories without question. He was a happy child, albiet a lonely one for though he whirled with them in their dances to call the rain he was not one of them in either appearance or temperment. And he envied their dark skin and eyes while he grew up pale like the whispy clouds, his hair while dark and curled didn't form as tightly or thickly as their's. His eyes meanwhile looked alien looking even to him, always reflecting the sky. Sometimes they were blue, sometimes gray, sometimes red, pink, purple or gold. Once when looking at his reflection in a lake it looked as though two holes had been punched out his head making the sky behind his head visible. These were the eyes of his father, Zeus. All his children had such eyes, at least all of his bastards did.

Author's Notes: So here's what I got planned for 'The Golden Thread' I'm going to be switching back and forth between Ariadne and Dionysos's points of view as they grow up (granted Dionysos is older than her but that's for later) and eventually mee


	3. Queens and Snowy White Bulls

Ariadne toyed with a ball of red thread while she watched her brothers play mock fights in the courtyard. _Wrap, thwack, thwack,_ their false swords went against leather shields. It had been almost a year since her father had summoned the bull by calling on the aid of Poseidon. Ariadne could still picture how white it had looked. One of the servant girls had gasped and said it was Zeus come back just as he had appeared when he first led Europa to their island.

Ariardne wove the red thread through her fingers. Everything had changed then. Even the way things looked seemed _changed_. The colors of the frescos' on the palace walls seemed duller, the whitewash of the walls looked muddy especially when compared to the bull's hide. And it was no longer Araidne's uncle the sad and wise Rhadamanthus who sat on the throne given to their step-father when he married Europa, but Ariadne's father: Minos. When he had summoned the bull it had proved to the people that it was him and not his brother Rhadamanthus who had the gods' favor. _Hadn't he also wed an immortal daughter of Helios in addition to summoning the bull? _They had whispered._ And who has Rhadamunthus to bed or name as his heir? Not a one. While Minos has sons and heirs a plenty and a pack of daughters to boot. _

"Is it really so bad to have the gods favor you, Uncle?" Ariadne remembered asking her uncle before he left.

"It is, just as its bad luck for the fish to be found by fisherman."

She pouted, black hair falling across her gray eyes. "What does that mean?"

He uncle had sighed and looked at her, "The gods are not human little one. But they are greater, so some may sport with us like a lonely shepard with sheep or you with a beloved pet but if they think us too wild they will discard us just as easily as you would a dog gone rabid."

Her thick eyebrows furrowed, remembering the golden haired god who had come to visit her sister in the night. ". . . But Acacallis loved him."

Rhadamunthus sat and motioned for her to come climb up onto his lap, like the child she was Ariadne curled up there as if her uncle's arms would be enough to keep her safe from all the change and confusion. "Your father wouldn't remember. . . He was so young when our mother died. But I never saw her smile. She would pace up and down the halls sighing, looking at the skies as if any minute she expected the Thunderer to descend from some cloud coming for her."

"He abducted her in the form of a bull," Her voice was anxious aware for the first time of the symnetry at work here. Her grandmother had loved a snowy white bull . . .

"Yes. . . Keep away from the bull your father summoned. No good will come if your father doesn't sacrifice it as promised."

"Why wouldn't he?"

But Rhadamanthus only gave her a sad, tired smile. "Because your mother won't let him."

Ariadne quickly unwound the yarn from her fingers and left the courtyard when she heard her mother scream signalling her labor pains. Her brothers stopped their whacking of swords to look in the direction of that awful supposedly blessed sound while their sister actually walked toward it, her quick small feet racing across the stone. She remembered the forboding sense of symetry she had felt while sitting on her uncles lap about white bulls and the Queens of Crete. She hoped that whatever her mother was birthing it would come out dark haired and safely mortal. And as she watched her mother push it out she was disappointed.


	4. He in The Tree

Gods, like children grow up. And soon not even long hair, skirts and the name 'Dionne' can hide the little god's changing voice, or defining neck. So his mothers sent him away with one of their lovers, a satyr named Silenus who is a genuis . . . but only when drunk. He taught his charge about mead and other fermented drinks. But not how to remove the long practised and graceful feminine gait from his walk. And Silenus simply grunted with some degree of approval when the young god experiemented with his slowly developing powers. First by darkening his skin ever so slightly, thickening his dark curls and changing his frightening sky eyes to a more earthy, but not quite human, black. Silenus then taught him the basics of how to love with two tongues as opposed to a tongue and mouth.

It is a lesson Dionysos put into practice when he met another satyr. This one was named Ampelos. He had hair is like beaten copper and eyes greener than new grass. Their's was a summer love, it was easy and bright. And they reveled in the decadence of newly discovered passion. Dionysos learned that along with his ability to change his own body he could change another's as well. He could fill them joy and bring them back from the dead as well. But all of this feels like only one side of a coin.

Dionysos mulled over the thought in his mind, and because it was only a fair weather love his attentions began to drift away from Ampelos. So it was perhaps out of some desperation that the satyr suggested a hunting trip. Which Dionysos agreed to hoping for a distraction from his own brooding. But on the day of the hunt he only let himself focus on Ampelos when he attempted to leap over a boar like the bull dancers on Crete. Dionysos laughed and made concerned protests as Ampleos approached the beast.

Then Ampelos screamed. No not really. The sound that came from him was more of a gurgled _**attempt**_ at a scream. Then nothing, as the boar ran off with blood red tusks. Dionysos just froze. His heart may have begun to stray from the satyr but it hadn't left his keeping comepletely. He took careful steps to where Ampelos' body had fallen. His lover lay crumpled up like fleshy paper on a bed of ivy.

'Wake up Ampelos.' He murmured and reached out his hand, to bring him back. But he didn't heal and come alive again like he's supposed too. Instead Ampelos' blood bubbled up in thick, fat blisters that turn a reddish-purple. His muscles began to form into thick ropey vines, while the color of his eyes leaks over it all. Almost all of him, save those monstrous blisters and his bones changed into the color of fress grass. His bones were the wood that anchored this nightmarish plant to the ground.

Dionysos stared slack jawed, the need to vomit rising when the new vines reached out to him. And pulled him tightly into an embrace like a lover on the bed of ivy. Dionysos did not scream just then. Even though the ivy and vines had begun to pierce his skin, and taking root in his hair. The now round clustered blisters, burst and stained his eyes their bloody purple. _**Grapes,**_ he thought. _**They're called grapes.**_ And this is why he didn't scream. The pain it felt so . . . _**right**_.

The ivy and grape vines tightened around him like a coccoon. But with his new grape stained eyes he could see everything.

He had only been half a god until then he realized. Still so very human just like his mother. No. _**Second**_ mother. He feels his heart beating in his chest and knows for the first time its not his. Or rather it is a thread linking him to a past form. A past form that had been shredded by Titans after his first mother, or not his first mother had lured him there. Out of vengeance? . . . No something connected to the swirling of time he was now in . . . Punishment, maybe? . . . Oh gods, the things he will do. To women, to children, to family and lovers. Even this, the death of Ampelos is retribution for what he will be. Dionysos his voice and screams, something in the scream sounded like the mating call of a large cat. From miles away he could hear the moans of satyrs and nymphs. Moans that in time become screams not unlike his own. He would give ecstasy and revelation but also pain, and take away sanity. He will give life but also take it. A giver and a taker. This would also be one of the few mercies given him, Ampelos would always be part of him. A mercy and a burden. And there would be grey eyes . . ._Oh_. The new god thinks, S_o this is what was on the other side of the coin . . . _

It was a goddess who found him. It's always a goddess. And this one was the mother of mothers, Cybele-Rhea. She tore him from the bloody nest of ivy and grape vines and carried him in her arms like a small baby in a chariot lead by large cats. There had been another god once, half-mad with revelation and his eyes had stayed like the sky afterwards. His hair was golden like the sun and lighning was in the clap of his hands, thunder in the stomping of his feet. But that god has found his destiny, it was time for his son to find his.


	5. Ruler of the Stars

Ariadne had heard the yelling between her parents over her mother's baby. If such a thing could be called a baby. But her mother insisted he was special, divine even just as she was. At night everyone in the Palace trembled at the sounds of the baby's father, the Mad Bull of Crete as it raged through the town and countryside. Was it mad? Or did he know his lover and child were being held captive by his lover's jealous husband?

Gods above, not even Zeus and Hera were not as insane in their jealousies as Ariadne now saw her parents to be. There had been a nymph once, pale as birch with wide amber eyes her father had taken to mistress. He had even introduced her to his children, but Ariadne's mother had cursed her husband's seed to come out as poison and the nymph hadn't lasted long after that. Ariadne was still just a child, she hadn't even seen ten years but already she knew her parents were flawed almost beyond repair. She wished her Uncle Rhadamanthus was still with them, still ruling. That was another thing, the whispers had been turning like the tides. Before it had been 'Blessed be Minos.' 'Oh Half-Divine Minos, please take your throne.' But now the servants were always whispering that the gods had cursed Minos, perhaps for being too proud, or not sacrificing the bull, or taking this and so and so to bed. The reasons varied with each telling, and it made Ariadne sick.

_Beware the Gods who would favor you._

Maybe everyone had it wrong. Maybe her family wasn't cursed but blessed. The gods were hammering them in the heat of some great fire until they could be taken to some forge and made anew. Hammering, hammering until the little princess thought her head would split open trying to find the answer.

"My lady, are you feeling well?"

Ariadne sat up in her bed, dark hair clinging to her forhead with sweat. She gave the serving girl only a small wide-eyed nod as if she expect her oily skin to become clear and blinding as that of a god. But the serving girl just smiled at her and reached out a hand to her as if the world wasn't haunted by the beautiful, divine bulls and men who shone like the sun.

'Come along, little one. Her majesty is calling for you,' The girl's smile faded, became apologetic. 'she wants to show you your new baby brother.'

Ariadne looked away, weighing her options carefully. She had been there, seen what her brother was. But despite her mother's ravings perhaps it wasn't divine? Or at least no more divine than she was as a child of Pasiphae the wide-shining daughter of the god Helios and the oceanid Perse and Minos son of Zeus.

She turned and rose from the bed, with the grace one would expect from a Queen or priestess, not a child. 'Take me to them.' Her voice matching her movements solemnity. And the serving girl just gave her a sad smile, panged perhaps that this girl cannot be a child as she should be and takes her to her mother's chambers which are dark and smoky like a temple. The King having ordered all windows covered for fear anyone should glimpse his wife's shame. But Pasiphae sat serenly with her son suckling from her breast, as no wet-nurse was willing and Minos was not about to encourage them in hopes the abomination would die naturally.

That abomination pulled away as his half-sister entered the room, large brown eyes attempting to focus through the shadows. And Ariadne notices that while his eyes are brighter and far more intelligent they did not blind her, even the fur that covers him from head to snout to shoulder is no more blinding than ripe wheat. Golden but safe. The bull-headed baby squirmed out of its swaddling and reached for her.

'He likes you,' Pasiphae laughed and waved the serving girl, not once looking at her. Ariadne approached the creature, still catious. It is not divine thankfully but is also not quite . . . right.

'Put out your arms, girl.' And something in her mother's voice makes her do as she's told and no sooner is he in her arms her brother makes a mewling, grunt that sounds oddly happy and is also frightenly endearing caught as it is between human and animal.

'His name is Asterion, like the stars. Oh my darling Ariadne he will be a great king someday. Even the gods will tremble before him.'

Ariadne caught herself smiling at the little brother in her arms but at her mothers words she shut her eyes, and whether consciously or no squeezed Asterion to her chest just as her Uncle had before he had left as though that alone could protect him.


End file.
